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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Baseball Study</span></span>
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</style><table class="infobox"><tbody><tr><th colspan="2" class="infobox-above">Baseball Study</th></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label">Objective</th><td class="infobox-data">Test effect of prior knowledge on reading comprehension</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label">Location</th><td class="infobox-data"><a href="Marquette_University" title="Marquette University">Marquette University</a>, <a href="Milwaukee" title="Milwaukee">Milwaukee</a></td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label">Project coordinator</th><td class="infobox-data">Donna Recht, Lauren Leslie</td></tr><tr><th scope="row" class="infobox-label">Participants</th><td class="infobox-data">64 seventh and eighth grade students</td></tr></tbody></table>
<p>The <b>Baseball Study</b> (also known as the <b>Baseball Experiment</b>) was an academic experiment that tested how <a href="Reading_comprehension" title="Reading comprehension">reading comprehension</a> is impacted by prior knowledge. In 1987, education researchers Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie tested middle school students on the topic of baseball, evaluating their results based on the participant's reading abilities and prior knowledge of baseball. They concluded that prior knowledge was just as important as reading proficiency in the student's abilities to comprehend written text.
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Design_and_implementation">Design and implementation</h2></div>
<p>In 1987, researchers Donna Recht and Lauren Leslie developed a study to determine how much reading comprehension depended on prior knowledge of a topic. As the study was to be conducted on junior high students, they chose the topic of <a href="Baseball" title="Baseball">baseball</a> under the assumption that the kids could potentially be familiar with the sport.<sup id="cite_ref-Henson2020_1-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Henson2020-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> Starting with 64 students, the participants were split into four groups based on their reading ability and prior knowledge of baseball. Each student read a half-page of text describing a <a href="Inning" title="Inning">baseball inning</a> and were then asked to recreate the action on a model baseball field, demonstrating their comprehension of what they had just read.<sup id="cite_ref-Stanford2024_2-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Stanford2024-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>The study found that the students who were previously familiar with baseball were better able to recreate the described action. According to the researchers: "Students with high reading ability but low knowledge of baseball were no more capable of recall or summarization than were students with low reading ability and low knowledge of baseball."<sup id="cite_ref-Terada2019_3-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Terada2019-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The study also found that the students assessed as 'less proficient' readers were "better at identifying important ideas in the text and at including those ideas in summaries", skills that are considered important for overall reading comprehension.<sup id="cite_ref-Cunningham2023_4-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Cunningham2023-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> <a href="Natalie_Wexler" title="Natalie Wexler">Natalie Wexler</a>, an educational journalist, described the key takeaway as demonstrating that "the bad readers who knew a lot about baseball outperformed the good readers who didn’t".<sup id="cite_ref-Wexler2019_5-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Wexler2019-5"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>5<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>Recht and Leslie were surprised at the results and reached the conclusion that if "educators want to accelerate student learning, it will be essential to consider students' background knowledge in the planning".<sup id="cite_ref-MurrayDarden2023_6-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-MurrayDarden2023-6"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>6<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> They published their research in the <a href="Journal_of_Educational_Psychology" title="Journal of Educational Psychology">Journal of Educational Psychology</a> in 1988.<sup id="cite_ref-Recht1988_7-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Recht1988-7"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>7<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Effects">Effects</h2></div>
<p>The baseball study has been described as "elegant in its simplicity but profound in its implications".<sup id="cite_ref-Knowledge2017_8-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Knowledge2017-8"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>8<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> The study's findings were praised for revealing that readers with "sufficient background knowledge are able to comprehend and learn more easily because they have multiple ways to store information".<sup id="cite_ref-Lewis2020_9-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Lewis2020-9"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>9<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
</p><p>The <a href="Northwest_Evaluation_Association" class="mw-redirect" title="Northwest Evaluation Association">Northwest Evaluation Association</a> (NWEA) lauded the study for increasing the connection between education and the community "while also dismantling stereotypes and bridging cultural divides". It cites the study's results as a way to assist <a href="At-risk_students" title="At-risk students">at-risk students</a>, such as students from historically <a href="Marginalized_groups" class="mw-redirect" title="Marginalized groups">marginalized groups</a> and <a href="Low_socioeconomic_status_students" class="mw-redirect" title="Low socioeconomic status students">low socioeconomic backgrounds</a>, through the use of <a href="Culturally_relevant_teaching" title="Culturally relevant teaching">culturally relevant teaching</a> to improve academic success.<sup id="cite_ref-Sharp2021_10-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Sharp2021-10"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>10<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="See_also">See also</h2></div>
<ul><li><a href="Natalie_Wexler" title="Natalie Wexler">Natalie Wexler</a>, American author who wrote <i>The Knowledge Gap</i> (2019)</li>
<li><a href="Culturally_relevant_teaching" title="Culturally relevant teaching">Culturally relevant teaching</a></li></ul>
<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>
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